The present invention relates to a magazine-housed disk player.
A magazine-housed disk player has recently been developed in which a plurality of disks on which audio information, video information or the like is recorded are housed in magazines, and one of the disks is selected for reproduction. For example, a magazine shown in FIG. 1 can house several compact disks on which about 120 tunes can be recorded if the reproduction time of each of the tunes is about 3 minutes. Therefore, it is easy to store many relatively short tunes such as jazz and popular music all in the same magazine.
For the magazine-housed disk player, a reproduction program indicating the sequence of reproduction is created before reproduction is commenced to continuously reproduce loaded tunes in accordance with the reproduction program, providing convenience to the user. However, when the user wants to know the contents of the disks housed in the magazine, he or she must take out the disks for confirmation or previously make a memorandum of them. If a plurality of programs are stored in the player, it is necessary to know the reproduction program corresponding to the magazine. Therefore, it is desired to improve the way of enabling the user to know the contents of the disks housed in the magazine and the reproduction program corresponding to the magazine.
Moreover, in a conventional magazine-housed disk player, it is necessary every time a magazine is replaced by another for the production program to be set again depending on the tunes carried by the disks in the magazine. If a plurality of reproduction programs are stored beforehand, it is necessary to determine the contents of the disks housed in each magazine to select one of the reproduction programs. For these reasons, it is troublesome to perform such operations when a plurality of magazines are used for the conventional magazine-housed disk player or a magazine is jointly used for a plurality of such magazine-housed disk players.
In a device proposed by the present applicant, magazines are provided with identification marks. The contents (such as the titles of tunes) of disks housed in each of the magazines are previously stored in a memory provided in a magazine-housed disk player. When the magazine is loaded in the player, the identification mark of the magazine is read to identify the magazine to display the contents of the disks housed in the magazine. It is thus made convenient for the user of the player to perform tune selection or the like.
Although tune selection is made easy by displaying the contents of the disks housed in the magazine, it is not necessary until the end of the reproduction of the selected tune to display the title of the selected tune after the reproduction thereof is started.
There is a desire to display image information (which is hereinafter referred to as tune content information) related to the lyrics of the tunes on the disks housed in the magazine, an explanatory sentence for the tune, an imaginational picture for the tune and so forth.
FIG. 2 shows a front view of a magazine 607 in which a plurality of optical disks 601, 602, 603, 604, 605 and 606 are housed in a stacked state for a conventional disk player.
FIG. 3 shows a front view of the disk player having a tray 608 in which the magazine 607 is housed, operation keys 601 and 611, and a display panel 610.
The operation of the disk player with the optical disks 601, 602, 603, 604, 605 and 606 housed in the tray 606 will now be described. As shown in a block diagram in FIG. 4, the playback operation key 609, which is one of the operation keys, a remote controller or the like is operated to select a desired disk. The selected disk is moved to a disk playback position. Only a lead-in area is provided with a portion for a track number 00. Program information is read and stored in a program memory by the operation of the keys and the reading of a table of contents (which is hereinafter abbreviated as TOC), which serves to determine a format to create a list of contents of the disks by changing the time items of the portion for the track number 00. The reproduction of the disk in the disk playback position is started on the basis of the program information stored in the program memory. The TOC remains stored as long as the magazine 607 is loaded in the tray 608 and electric power is applied to the disk player. The program information remains stored unless a clear key 609 is operated.
When two magazines A and B each containing one or more disks are to be reproduced in a predetermined sequence by the above-described conventional disk player, the magazine A is first loaded in the tray 608 to reproduce the disks in the magazine in accordance with a set program, and the other magazine B is thereafter loaded in the tray to reproduce the disks in the magazine. In that case, the program stored for the disks in the magazine A is erased at the time of reproduction of the disks in the other magazine B. For that reason, when the magazine A is loaded again in the tray 608 to reproduce the disks in the magazine in accordance with the same program, the program needs to be set again. This is troublesome.
Still further, in a conventional disk player, a magazine containing a plurality of information disks is loaded so that the information disks can be selectively reproduced. FIG. 5 shows the magazine 701. A plurality of trays 702, in which the disks 703 are housed, are stacked in the magazine 701 so that the trays can be pulled out of the magazine to selectively play the disks. When the magazine 701 is loaded in the disk player, the number of a desired information disk and the number of a desired track are designated so that ordinary reproduction or programmed reproduction can be performed. The magazine-type disk player has an advantage that the information disks 703 do not need to be alternatively put in the player and can be selectively reproduced in accordance with a large number of programs.
Although the conventional disk player has the above-mentioned advantage, it has the inconvenience that every time a plurality of magazines each containing a plurality of information disks are replaced by other disks, the numbers of the information disks and the program for the disks must be entered again.